Text 4434, 80 rader
Skriven 2013-09-08 04:54:00 av MICHAEL LOO (1:123/140)
Ärende: trip 123
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I was up at 2:35. The chunk of leftover rib roast was most
welcome. Less welcome was my discovery, between my toes, of a
gift meant probably for Annie - hairballs and cat diarrhea all
at once. I'm surprised I didn't wake her up hopping noisily
to the sink to wash up.

Back to bed, where I tossed, hacking horribly, and when I
went to the bathroom around 5, I found that Annie had put a
bottle of promethazine-codeine at my sink, so I said, oh, why
not try it. I'm not sure whether that was a good idea - the
cough was much abated, but so was all cognitive function from
then until as I write three or four (I told you!) days later.

As Annie was jet-lagged and I was drug-addled, we didn't do much
during the day. We did manage to get to Wegmans, where we
managed to drop $300 on groceries, including five 1 1/4 - 1 1/2 lb
lobsters, because she wanted lobsters. She said two for you, two
for me, one for Robbie (he had requested to be served only one).

Besides the lobsters, the menu included a Robbie-made caprese
of Wegmans' fresh mozzarella that we'd picked up and heirloom
tomatoes that he'd found at the farmers' market. You know,
heirlooms really don't taste all that good.

We ended up eating as follows: Annie, tail and claws of one
lobster; Robbie, tail, claws, and tomalley of one lobster; I,
tail and claws of one lobster, plus three lobster bodies with
legs, plus one extra blob of tomalley. I had given Annie and
Robbie bigger lobsters than mine, as I had planned on eating
two; Annie's turned out to be the only hen of the lot, the
others being boys.

No room for dessert.

--
For breakfast, whenever it was I tardily got up, I butchered
the other two lobsters, saving the tails and claws for Annie
and eating the rest myself (nuking for two or three 30-second
sessions seems to do an okay job).

Time to prepare the Labor Day picnic, with Dr. Charlie, sans
family, Dan and Barb and their kids Charlie and John, Anne
their mother/grandmother, Mike and Jill from across the river,
Robbie, and us.

I was woozy and irritable all day and didn't do much for this
meal, not that I remember anyway.

Cheese and crackers and I recall opening bags of Cheetos for
starters, plus the devilled eggs that Mike made. He's under
the delu...impression that people like his devilled eggs, which
are stuffed with mayo, mustard, and salt only, but the filling
is at least piped in neatly with a pastry bag. There were also
Trois Petits Cochons pate and some smoked salmon in a wooden
box, but it was decided there would be enough to eat without,
so they were not offered and still sit many days later in
their plastic and wooden housings.

I said I wanted to cook on the stove, but Annie wanted the
more festive grill, so Dan took that over, producing burgers,
including one rare rare for me and the rest medium; Nathan's
dogs; and Wegmans hot and sweet Italian sausage.

Annie made a smashed cucumber salad that she had learned at
a cooking school in Shanghai the previous week; also tortellini
salad (open a pack of Wegmans tortellini, mix with a jar of
Wegmans pesto - this was Robbie's idea and was adopted over
my grumblings).

Anne, pushing 90, was asked to make dessert; she outdid herself
and made two: a coconut white cake and a rhubarb coffee cake.
Unfortunately, she put the shredded coconut for the white cake
on the rhubarb coffee cake, and there was little coconut left
for the coconut cake. That was okay: the rhubarb cake was not
harmed and was quite good; the coconut cake was sweet enough.
Dan got a rise out of her by saying that the coconut cake was
too dry: in fact you take your white cake and soak it in coconut
syrup, so it's really wet, so the joke was pretty obvious.
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